Name: Puff Cake, or Cup Cake
Ingredients: three cupfuls sugar; two cupfuls sweet milk; one cupful butter; five cupfuls flour; six eggs; two tea-spoonfuls soda; four tea-spoonfuls cream tartar; two tea-spoonfuls lemon extract

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Puff Cake, or Cup Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Six eggs, three cupfuls sugar, two cupfuls sweet milk, one cupful butter, five cupfuls flour, two tea-spoonfuls soda, four tea-spoonfuls cream tartar, two tea-spoonfuls lemon extract.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

896Calories

28 gProtein

32 gFat

124 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Cream	1 tbsp (15ml) heavy	51
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Vehling, Joseph Dommers, 1879-1950. fmo. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together610 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together738 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, flour, egg, tea, cream):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Peachfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, flour, egg, tea, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.